The Top Entrepreneurs in Money, Marketing, Business and Life

Listen to The Top if you want to hear from the worlds TOP entrepreneurs on how much they sold last month, how they are selling it, and what they are selling - 7 days a week in 20 minute interviews!
The Top is FOR YOU IF you are:
A STUDENT who wants to become the CEO of a $10m company in under 24 months (episode #4)
STUCK in the CORPORATE grind and looking to create a $10k/mo side business so you can quit (episode #7)
An influencer or BLOGGER who wants to make $27k/mo in monthly RECURRING revenue to have the life you want and full CONTROL (episode #1)
The Software as a Service (SaaS) entrepreneur who wants to grow to a $100m+ valuation (episode #14).
Your host, Nathan Latka is a 25 year old software entrepreneur who has driven over $4.5 million in revenue and built a 25 person team as he dropped out of school, raised $2.5million from a Forbes Billionaire, and attracted over 10,000 paying customers from 160+ different countries.
Oprah gets 60 minutes or more to make her guests comfortable to then ask tough questions. Nathan does it all in less than 15 minutes in this daily podcast that's like an audio version of Pat Flynn's monthly income report. Join the Top Tribe at NathanLatka.com/TheTop

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Mike Winn. He’s the CEO and founder of the company called DroneDeploy, the leading cloud-software platform for commercial drones and he’s on the mission to make the sky successful and productive for everybody. The company focuses on the agricultural and construction industries, but its large customers are from almost every industry across 130 countries. He has collected more than 8M acres of aerial imagery. Prior to joining Deploy, Mike worked at Google and was a RC helicopters hobbyist.

Andrew Yates. He’s the CEO and founder of Artesian and they want to make sellers more effective at engaging with buyers using smart data and new techniques to create the right impact. He’s been involved in the sales and marketing for the past 25 years and is aiming to make a difference to people by creating software companies that make a meaningful dent in the universe.

Ramin Sayar. He’s currently the president and CEO of Sumo Logic, an industry-leading SaaS-based company backed by some great VCs and he has an impressive list of customers and partners. Previously, he was the senior VP and GM at VMware, where he developed the product and business strategy and led the fastest growing aspect of that business. Previously, he had multiple executive roles with leading companies such as HP Software, Mercury Software, Tibco software, iPlanet Software, AOL and Netscape.

Jeroen Corthout. He’s the co-founder and CEO of Salesflare, the intelligent CRM that startups and small businesses love to use. Prior to Salesflare, he was helping companies to implement their new CRM, marketing and sales. Salesflare kicked off when he and his co-founder, Lieven, found a way to automate their CRM data. Salesflare’s mission is to automate everything in sales, but the irreplaceable human contact.

Adam Jankovits and his goal is to become an outstanding marketing technologist. He is a person who brings together strengths in marketing, technology and social interaction. He’s got an MBA and consultancy background, but also has a strong interest in technology and social-networking skills. His focus right now is on his company, LeadBerry.

Steve McLaughlin. He’s one of the founders and CEO of Financial Technology Partners. He is a former senior banker at Goldman Sachs, covering fintech for over 20 years. He was recently named Investment Banker of the Year, ranked number 2 banker in Silicon Valley by The Information, and he’s top ranked on Institutional Investors. Online Finance 35 listed him as one of the most influential people in fintech.

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “I wished I knew where all the stocks are going”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:40 – Nathan introduces Steve to the show

02:27 – Steve’s company advises firms across the entire fintech landscape on raising capital and M&A—they’re on the sales side helping people figure out where to get money, how to get money, what the valuation is, what the structure is

10:20 – The growth of Wealthfront and Betterment are the ETFs in their assets and management

10:37 – Steve would use ETFs as a metric to try to predict what Wealthfront and Betterment are going to look like in 5 to 10 years

11:03 – Steve personally thinks that they can have a lot of winners—there are a lot of companies in the mutual funds industry that didn’t win and a lot that are dead

11:15 – So there’s no saying that the guys who invented the popularized robo advisors are going to be the winners

11:28 – Steve also thinks that Wealthfront and Betterment are going to do quite well and he sees them from afar, he’s a big fan and he anticipates they’re going to be winner

11:34 – Wealthfront and Betterment have already proven that at some extent, they’ve outlasted lots of other guys

11:55 – Steve thinks Wealthfront and Betterment care a lot about the consumers behind the platform and they realized that their people actually manage their money correctly over the course of time

13:05 – Riskalyze has various risks tools and robo advisor tools that they sell into RIAs

13:15 – RIA stands for Registered Investment Advisor

13:55 – All the models could succeed, there’s hundreds of mutual fund companies that did incredibly well

14:17 – These are fintech companies

14:59 – Nathan is a big fan of Warren Buffett who goes to all the annual meetups and just sticks to his advice

15:09 – “I’m not going to be active. I’m never going to beat the market. I’m never going to do this stuff and just going to put it in a passive, low exchange ratio, Vanguard, SMP and 500 index and that’s what I do”

15:19 – Nathan was hoping that Andy or Jon could convince him to take a shot at one of them, throw $10K in both rooms, see what happens over a few years and do a comparison

Jon Stein. He’s the CEO and founder of Betterment. With his passion about making life better and his career experience advising banks and brokers, he founded Betterment in 2008. Jon is a graduate of Harvard University and Columbia Business School. He holds a Series 72463 and he’s a CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst). His interests lie in the intersection of behavior, psychology and economics. What excites him most about his work is making everyday activity and products more efficient, accessible and easy to use.

Dean Graziosi—he knows how to create success. From extremely humble beginnings, he started with a firewood business in high school to a collision repair shop and his first real estate deal before he turned 20. From there, he created a multi-million dollar real estate business, became a New York Times best-selling author multiple times, and is one of the most watched real estate and success trainers of our generation. He maximizes his success and profits on each of his endeavors along his evolution and his businesses have generated nearly one billion dollars in revenue. He’s obsessed with sharing his success along this journey with the world.

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Don’t believe your thoughts, they lie to you most of the time. If you could just observe your thoughts and throw away the shit that doesn’t serve you, man, you could just go a lot faster”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:22 – Nathan introduces Dean to the show

02:28 – Dean skipped college

02:42 – When Dean was 16, he would buy wrecked cars and flip them in his garage

03:00 – He has bought some of the cars for $500 to $5000

03:11 – Dean got his first real estate deal at 18 with no money down

03:17 – Mrs. Laprezzti gave him a deal with no money down

03:20 – Dean paid Mrs. Laprezzti monthly and he renovated the place

03:49 – Dean’s social studies teacher who was also a real estate agent gave Dean leads of people who had houses that were not selling

04:45 – Dean gave Mrs. Laprezzti $2500 a month for a 4-unit apartment, for 3 years

05:05 – Mrs. Laprezzti needed $2K for her expenses for the condo

05:31 – Dean didn’t care that he may be paying more

05:48 – Dean promised that he’d pay her in 3 years

05:55 – At the end of 3 years, Dean had the room fully rented and he was able to get a bank loan and pay Mrs. Laprezzti off

06:10 – Dean was making $4200 when he rented out the place, then he sold it

06:24 – Dean still owns around 400 houses, right now

06:56 – Dean’s dad was born during the Depression

07:20 – His dad was a mechanic and a collision repair shop guy

07:26 – Dean evolved by maxing out on the equity he could gain from each of his houses

07:38 – After the condo, Dean got an old, rundown mansion and turned it into 10 apartment units

07:53 – Dean refinanced the apartments and bought more apartments

08:00 – It was the late 80s and early 90s when Dean transferred to upstate New York

08:09 – Dean bought some land and went into the process of subdividing

09:10 – Back then, Dean was just hustling for the next property, taking the cash, and making a creative deal

09:30 – “There’s always a creative deal”

09:45 – It’s about buying off-market deals

10:21 – Average revenue from all of Dean’s properties is $380K

10:45 – The market value for 380 units is around $20M

10:54 – Dean is half leveraged in all of the units

11:45 – Dean authored a couple of books because he is obsessed with marketing and sales

René Lacerte. He’s the founder and CEO of Bill.com, the leading business payments company. He’s a fintech industry vettor and has been working to simplify business payments since 1999, when he founded PayCycle, which was later acquired by Intuit in 2009. Bill.com is now working to help bridge the digital divide between banks and businesses by partnering with 3 of the top US banks and 45% of the top hundred accounting firms. He believes that banks play a critical role in the advancement of fintech. While technology advancement since Silicon startups are divided by or driving much of the industry change, René believes that banks are and will remain the center of the financial universe for quite some time.

Laurent Le Moal. He brings extensive knowledge of digital payments in emerging markets to PayU where he serves as the CEO. He culminated an 11-year career at PayPal as general manager for continental Europe, Russia, Middle East and Africa, leaving a billion dollar development vision across diverse geographies. Prior to PayPal, he founded an Italian startup called Talent Manager. He built a 40-person team there and now the startup has expanded to France and Spain. He also has experience in McKinsey and Antal International. He leads PayU’s strategic direction and development and is currently building on the company’s position and high-growth markets all around the world. Given the company’s focus on being an expert in a local market in which it operates, Le Moal leads the creation and implementation of payment methods which best suits PayU’s customers all around the world.

Jonathan Epstein. He’s the current senior VP for international at Sentient Technologies, the maker of Sentient Ascend, the first conversion optimization solution that is powered by evolutionary artificial intelligence. Epstein has been in many companies at the forefront of technology and media including GameSpot, which he’s the founding CEO, and Omek which was sold to Intel and GameSpy which was eventually sold to IGN.

Joe Koufman. He’s responsible for introducing at least 3 married couples in countless contacts to establish business relationships. In early 2014, he parlayed his passion for connecting people and founded a company called AgencySparks, which is essentially a dating service for brands and marketing agencies.

Ryan Stewart. He’s a digital marketing expert with over 8 years of client facing experience. He currently owns and operates Webris, a Miami-based digital marketing agency specializing in SEO and content marketing.

Trevor Wolfe. He’s the CEO and co-founder of Delvv.io. He started his career in New York, where he held product innovation and marketing positions for Kantar and TNS. He also led the marketing for New York brands, Gerson Lehrman Group, along with Moveline—which is a tech startup in NYC Company and Morgan Stanley. Throughout his career, he’s launched over a dozen analytics and research products and is an active advisor to investors in market research, adtech, and media tech startups in New York, Vegas, and Africa. He holds a BBA in international business from Hofstra University and is an aspiring sailor. His cat’s name is Junior.

Varun Chandran. He’s the founder and CEO of Corporate360, a big data marketing software startup. He bootstrapped the company in 2012, grew the business into multimillion dollars in revenue with international clients and 40 employees across 5 countries. Prior to Corporate360, he worked for some of the leading technology companies like SAP, Oracle, Dell and Netapp in 3 different countries. He’s a college dropout and a national footballer. He loves data science and travelling. Under his leadership, Corporate360 became the first international startup from Kerala, bringing IT jobs that foster social empowerment.

Oli Gardner. He’s the co-founder of Unbounce. He’s seen more landing pages than anyone in the planet. He’s a prolific international speaker and he’s on the mission to rid the world of marketing mediocrity by using data-informed copywriting, design, interaction, and psychology to create a more delightful experience for marketers and customers alike.

Martin Garcia. He’s the CEO and founder of FLYX.Systems. He’s also a mechatronics engineer and co-founder of Ilumexico, a solar power lighting company for rural communities in Mexico. He’s got an MSc in drone design at University of Southampton and is an alumni of Singularity University at NASA Ames California, USA and later, a teaching fellow for space and robotics. FLYX.Systems is a company that develops technology for industrial UAVs that aim to improve the productivity of many industries.

02:33 – There are 3 UAVs in history: the military UAVs, the drones that are popular nowadays, and the industrial UAVs

03:22 – Industrial UAVs are going to be the biggest game changer in business

03:31 – Industrial UAVs will be completely autonomous

03:48 – 70% of UAV crashes are caused by human errors

03:55 – Martin wants to develop a company that aims to build industrial UAVs for different applications in different industries

04:25 – Martin wants to build a combination of both the UAV hardware and the UAV software or the brain of the drone

04:33 – VJA is a company that uses UAVs mainly for photography, but the drones can’t be modified easily

04:59 – When Martin develops software in a computer that can be used in autopilot, it results to an amazing UAV with a high level of intelligence and algorithms that differentiate themselves from other UAVs

05:24 – FLYX.Systems currently has 2 main projects

06:09 - FLYX.Systems provides services to solar companies

06:26 – FLYX.Systems is still in the preoperative phase

06:34 – They’ve raised $100K

06:39 – They’ve used the funds for the UAV’s prototype and the landing platform

06:48 – The landing platform is one of their biggest projects up their sleeves

07:17 – The landing platform will be applied to the solar companies

07:32 – Team size

07:46 – Based in Mexico, but thinking of expanding to Columbia

08:03 – FLYX.Systems was launched early 2016

08:21 – Prior to FLYX.Systems, Martin was working as a CTO, developing technologies for solar applications

08:28 – Martin went to Singularity University’s summer camp where he met people in the same field

09:06 – Martin got his masters in UK and it was about the foundation and core of FLYX.Systems, which is the automation of the UAV system

09:27 – Martin was 28 when he entered Singularity

09:51 – One of the advantages in having an UAV business in Mexico is that the regulation for flying UAVs is not that harsh or strict compared to USA

10:18 – There’s less competition in Mexico, too

10:20 – The people in Mexico are talented and the salary range is lower than in the USA

10:42 – UAVs are not expensive when you know how to build them

11:27 – There’s a possibility for DJI to move to industrial in the future

11:40 – Martin wants to work on localized applications as quickly as possible

11:55 – Martin knows his market and wants to build something that is suited for their specific needs

BJ Lackland. He has spent over 15 years as an investor in startups. As an investor, he’s been in VC and Angel and is now the CEO of Lighter Capital, where he oversees over 200 alternative investments in early stage tech companies. As an executive, he’s been on the executive team of 3 companies including CFO of a public tech company called Power Efficiency Corp. He’s raised and uploaded over $150M worth of capital.

Khaled Naim. He’s the CEO and co-founder of the company called Onfleet, a software company that makes it easy for businesses to manage local delivery operations. He holds an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and studied computer engineering at The University of Michigan. He grew up between London and Dubai. He’s currently residing in San Francisco.

Peter Kortenhoeven. He’s a creative person with a great deal of experience in the gaming industry. He started after graduation at the Academy of Arts as an animator at Coded Illusions. He became a lead animator at Triumph Studios shortly afterwards. One of his key successes has been the successful Overlord series. As lead artist, he worked on many different, yet, unreleased games. From a need to gain more business experience, he decided to focus on applied games. He became an art director at Bright Alley and later on at Ranj. During his period within the serious gaming industry, Peter kept working on small game projects during his spare time. One of those projects, Pillow Willow, helped him start his first company, Pillow Willow VR Studios.

David Barrett. He started programming at the early age of 6 and has been inspired to become an expense reporter ever since. He attended the University of Michigan where he worked in a virtual reality lab before moving to Texas to write a 3D graphic engine for the industry. Then, he moved to California to join a name that is probably familiar to many of you, Travis Kalanick, in building a peer-to-peer file transport technology called, Red Swoosh, which was acquired by Akamai in 2007. In 2008, David left that company to start Expensify—where he is today—and he’s trying to figure out the world’s frustrations, one expense report at a time.

Dale Beaumont. He’s an award winning technology entrepreneur, international speaker and author of 16 best-selling books. He started his first business at age 19 and has been building companies ever since. One of those companies is now a multi-million dollar enterprise which enabled Dale to become an investor, philanthropist, and has given him the opportunity to set foot in over 70 countries.

Maria Gotsch. She’s the president and CEO at the Partnership Fund for New York City, which is the investment arm of the Partnership for New York City. In addition to leading the funds operations, Maria has spearheaded the creation and operation of a number of fund strategic initiatives including The Fintech Innovation Lab. Prior to joining the fund in 1999, Maria was a managing director at a company that is now part of Deutsche Bank, providing strategic and financial advice related to mergers, acquisitions, dispositions, joint ventures and the development of business strategies. Maria worked for LaSalle Partners in the New York area and Merrill Lynch Capital Markets, in both New York and London. She graduated with an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from Wellesley College.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – “A book on the Iranian negotiations with the US around the treaty”

Gaurav Dhillon. He’s an early investor in a company called SnapLogic. He joined in 2009, when he saw the potential of how companies integrate applications data and devices for digital business. He spearheaded SnapLogic’s rapid growth and overseas strategies, products, and operations. He’s previously the co-founder and CEO of Informatica.